


Carve Your Own Shape

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: Yuri Plisetsky doesn't mind his body now, while it's small and androgynous. But he can see the future rushing towards him with increasing dread, in the bodies of the taller, muscular, adult skaters he competes against, and he doesn't know who to talk to or even how to explain it. All he knows how to do is throw themself into training as hard as he can to get the most out of his body while he can still stand to be in it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Posted as part of the Katsudon Bang challenge 2017. All art is by Naty/hernameisboxcar - thank you so much for choosing my fic and for the beautiful art.
> 
>  
> 
> [Art masterpost ](http://hernameisboxcar.tumblr.com/post/157921951457/carve-your-own-shape-art-masterpost)

 

 

Yuri still liked his body when he started training for his first senior season. He loved feeling small and strong and graceful. He liked the way strangers sometimes hesitated before they addressed him in the masculine. He liked watching other skaters, men and women, and thinking none of them skated just like he does. He didn’t skate like a man or a woman. He moved like both. Like neither. Like something else.

The first hair appears on his chin the day he finds out Victor has left for Japan.

Yuri knew this had to come one day, that he'd been lucky to keep his prepubescent body for as long as he had. He still wants to smash the mirror and rip the hair from his skin as hard as possible. He shaves it instead, with a shaking hand, trying not to leave a mark.

* * *

It's strange how it's easier to be himself on the ice, with all the focus on his body, than it is in simple conversation. When he skates he doesn't have to look or act male. When people talk to him, though, or when he talks about himself, his maleness is inescapable. The whole language was a cage. Russian works one way for men, another for women, and he had to be one or the other. He didn't just lack a word for what he was; he had to slog through the world with every word reminding him that he was becoming a man.

(His mind shied away from the horror that perhaps he was _already_ a man.)

The words to talk _about_ and _to_ someone who was neither simply didn't exist; the alternative to being addressed as a man was silence. It was nonexistence.

* * *

He has to pick up a Japanese phrasebook on his way to yell at Victor. Yuri knows English, and surely people at the airport in Japan will speak it too, but who knows about a backwater like Hasetsu? He reads it on the plane, curled up in his seat, planning to just memorise a few sentences like "which way to Hasetsu?" and "I would like to buy that lion shirt, please." He gets stuck on the early pages, though, when he realises it doesn't have words for 'he' or 'she', and then when he realises that _there aren't any_. It's terribly strange and fills him with longing, and he quickly skips to the section on shopping before he can think about it too much.

He still has to know how to say 'I', though and there are a few different words for it; some gendered, some not. On the few occasions he has to use one, he refers to himself as _ore_ , though. It feels safer; nobody in Russia can know that he doesn't want to be a man, so it's better if nobody anywhere knows. Besides, it makes him feel tougher, and he needs to feel tough right now. But he notices when other people say _watashi_ , men and women, and nothing happens. It's normal.

It doesn't mean they're _not_ men or women, the way Yuri wants it to mean, but he still yearns just for a single word like that that doesn't force him into a man's shape.

* * *

Yuuri's performance kills him a little.

It's not like his own skating. Katsuki might be a crybaby, but he's a grown up with an adult man's body. His movements, when he skates Eros, aren't the same as Yuri's androgynous, lithe grace. It's a whole different gender performance. But it is a performance, a man skating like someone who's not a man, and it's one more layer of reasons that it hurts. It hurts to lose, it hurts to lose to Katsuki, and for reasons he can't even explain, it hurts to watch a man skate like a femme fatale.

He has to get out of here. Screw Victor and his promises. Yuri's body is still changing, he has work to do, and he's running out of time.

* * *

Training with Lilia helps. She pushes him harder and harder until he feels like he's being whittled away, carved down to fine, hard points. She treats his body like it's a tool, and he can find a lot to love in that. Forgetting what his body makes him, how it marks him, and thinking only of what it can do. Under her training, he doesn't feel like he's becoming a man, just being shaped into a skater.

Yet the hair still grows on his chin and it's a struggle every day to shave it carefully instead of tearing viciously at his skin. And even as he hones his body to a finely tuned skating machine, he can feel he has more muscle than before, see his shape starting to change, and he still feels like he's losing.

He starts growing his hair out. It's a small concession, but it's what he's got.

* * *

He wants the gold. Of course, everyone wants the gold, they wouldn't keep punishing their bodies otherwise, but Yuri doesn't think anyone wants it or needs it like he does. He wants one tangible achievement while his body still feels like it's his.

He's not stupid, he knows he's in the _men's_ senior figure skating division. They won't let him in the women's and there's no division for freaks who don't fit in either. If he wants to win gold, he has to compete as male.

But he doesn't have to skate like a man, and he doesn't have to like it.

* * *

 

 

"You're going to hurt yourself," Mila remarked one day, when he'd pushed himself to the point of collapse and still kept trying to practice. "Take a rest."

"I can't."

"Yuri…"

"I _can't_. I can't afford to lose at Rostelecom. I won't."

"You can't afford to burn yourself out, either. The people here will love you whether you place first or not."

"I don't care about that." He really didn't. He didn't skate for anyone except his family. Russia could go to hell.

"Well, I care whether you burn out and injure yourself. This is only your first senior year, you have so many more to go."

He'd seen what his future held, though, in the bodies of the other competitors. In Katsuki, and in Victo, even fucking JJ. Masculine. Handsome. He'd still be able to skate when he grew into someone like them, and he was going to keep skating. It was the only thing he'd ever known, and he didn't know how to stop. But he'd never be able to perform with this kind of passion and freedom again. His career would go on, but he knew once he was truly a man, his heart would be dead.

* * *

What has saving his body from injury ever gotten him, anyway? Just time wasted, precious time, before he loses his body to something far more permanent.

* * *

Yuri's still smarting from placing second in Rostelecom. He's in the studio by dawn every morning, working harder and harder for strength, beauty, perfection. Yakov is even starting to seem dubious about how much he trains; he's grateful for Lilia, who always approves of him getting in extra work.

Except this morning when he gets to the studio to find no coach, no teacher, just Victor.

"Good morning!" he says, as cheerful as ever.

"What are you doing here?"

"I missed mother Russia, of course! It's past time for me to visit. Just a quick stop on the way to Barcelona."

"You were here _last week_."

"And I didn't have nearly enough time with you."

"Ugh. That's your own fault for being so obsessed with your piglet." Yuri ducks away when Victor tries to throw an arm about his shoulders. "I don't need time with you unless you're coaching me. The Grand Prix is coming, I need to _work_ , and so does he."

"Ahhh, Yuuri!" Ugh, he lights up just saying katsudon's name. "No, I will coach him until his retirement, which will be never! But you're wrong about one thing, Yura: no training today! Yakov and I have spoken, you are to have the day off."

"No! I don't want -"

"Come!" Victor is larger and stronger; something that would normally make Yuri feel good except that Victor is forcefully steering him away from the studio and back out onto the street. "We are going to my apartment for…" he glances at his watch. "Breakfast!"

"Did you come here straight off the plane and not even check the time?" Yuri demands. "And your apartment has been empty for months. I'm not eating dog food, Victor!"

* * *

Victor has breakfast delivered.

Someone's been cleaning his apartment while he's been in Japan, evidently. It's sparse with most of his favourite belongings relocated to Hasetsu, but the warm box of food on the doorstep when they arrive makes it a little more homey. Victor digs up an old teapot and some smoky tea, too, and boils some water while he ushers Yuri to start eating.

It's more than Yuri's used to for breakfast. Omelette with sausage, pancakes with fruit. He's already pushing food around on his plate by the time Victor brings him a cup of tea and sits down across from him, beaming.

"So how are you, Yuri?"

The whole thing is too weird. Victor's not a nasty person, but he's never been _nice_ to Yuri, not breakfast and tea nice. Victor was an idol, a rival and a mentor. Someone who pushed, not comforted. It all made him nervous, unsure of what was happening, and he had to take a sip of tea to buy time.

"My Grandad makes tea better than you," he said, because rudeness, at least, was comfortable. "This is full of leaves and it's oversteeped."

"We all have different talents. I can land a quad lutz and your grandfather makes great tea." Victor's eyes narrowed, though he kept smiling. "You should eat."

"Too much food." Yuri pushed it away. "Has living with Katsuki made you into a piggy too? I hope you don't feed him like this or he'll be too fat to skate."

"Yuuri is twenty three years old and has done all the growing he needs to. _You_ , on the other hand," Victor points at him with his fork, "Have a lot of growing to do right now and you need plenty of food to stay strong."

Yuri flinched.

Victor's expression changed. Certain. Curious. He tapped his fork against his plate, just watching.

 

 

"You're not my coach." Yuuri leaned back in his chair. "You're not even my teammate. You don't get any say in what I eat."

"You're right," Victor agreed, "But I have been fifteen and lonely while skating my first senior season before."

Yuri said nothing.

"Oh, we talk a lot about how big it is, and the pressure, and competing against adult skaters for the first time, but it's more than that, isn't it? You have to spend all your time training and travelling, and doing it in the spotlight, at a time when you're changing and growing up and you're supposed to be figuring out who you are."

"I can handle it," Yuri snarls, with all the bravado he has..

But Victor's expression doesn't change, and he doesn't say anything. Yuri feels the doubt welling up in him. He's blazed his way through his skating career by aggressively asserting to anyone and everyone that he can do whatever he puts his mind to. But when Victor looks at him like that…

"I have to be able to handle it," he says, but his voice cracks. Almost as big a betrayal as when his voice first broke a year ago.

"Yura," Victor says, gentle and soft now. "What can we do to help?"

"I don't want your help! I need to train, to win!"

"I know, but overtraining _stops_ you from winning. Yakov thinks so too," Victor continued."And it doesn't have to be right now, but you really do need to eat more. The way you're going, you're going to burn out by next season. Maybe even this season."

"I don't _care_ ," Yuri said, through clenched teeth. "I just want to win this _._ "

"And gamble the rest of your future on it? You could have a long career. What's so important about this season that it's worth breaking yourself?"

 _Because I'll break anyway_.

"I'm not trying to break myself." He can't even convince himself now. "I just… I need to train and I need to win."

"Something's wrong with you, and you need to talk about it. I want to help."

Yuri gets up, fumbles with his skate bag. He drops it and has to bend down to pick it up again, humiliated that his body is betraying him in a simple thing like this, too. The only think his body does right is skate. He _needs to skate_.

"Yuri," says Victor, gentle and cruel. "Your coaches agree with me. You're not allowed to train again until you talk to someone."

There it is. In a moment, all the fight in Yuri's body is gone. He stands by the door, just staring. No goal and nowhere to run.

"You're punishing me."

"I prefer to think of it as motivating, much like the last time I offered you a reason to slow down and stop hurting yourself."

"You left, then."

"I didn't pay you enough attention, I agree. But when you asked me, I kept my promise. And I'm not leaving now."

Yuri just stares. He's breathing heavily, like he's just finished a program, and he hasn't even gone anywhere. He hates this, feelings trapped, being pushed into talking about the thing he shouldn't talk about, that he has the decency to shut up about and keep to himself. It's humiliating to hear it from Victor, a mentor and a rival; Yuri would detest showing weakness in front of him even when he was at his best. He'd been doing so well. He had this under control. He was going to keep going forever no matter what happened, he was doing _just fine_ , and then the bastard deserter Nikiforov turns up trying to force him to explain. To ruin everything.

And yet.

He could walk out of here, really. Victor couldn't force him to stay. He could walk out and go to Yakov, or to Lilia, and demand that they let him return to skating. They might be worried, but without Victor, he could probably convince them. He didn't have to give in.

But what made him feel relieved wasn't the idea of storming out there and skating anyway, despite what they were all telling him. It was the thought that there was no other option for him but to sit back down and tell Victor everything.

He feels like he's sleepwalking, drifting through the very air, as he makes his way back across the room. It seems to take a long time to sink into the chair, longer than it even took him to decide to walk back over here. But he did decide. Maybe he'll regret it later, maybe this will be a huge mistake, but as much as he thought he was doing fine, he knows, too, that he's so, so tired of pretending to play this part.

He's aware, as much as he tries to sneer and gloss over it, that Victor knows very well what it feels like to play a caricature of yourself.

It's hard to start. It's hard to find the first words to say. Even as he's sitting here trying to do it, Yuri can't imagine getting all the way to the end of everything he has to say. He's worked too hard to keep these words down. But figure skating is the art of doing what at first seems impossible. It was hard to imagine landing a quad once, too.

"When you were my age," he starts, his voice sounding scratchy and strange. "Did you ever wish that you wouldn't grow up?"

Victor watches him carefully for a moment, like he's waiting for Yuri to volunteer something else. "I was very excited to move into the senior competition," he says, uncertainly, and Yuri shakes his head.

"No shit, me too," he snorts. "I'm pretty sure you can't have missed that no matter how lovesick you've been for the last year."

Victor makes an odd movement with his mouth, like pleasure and pain at once. "No. I didn't think that was it."

"My body's going to change," he blurts out, before he can think anything else of it. "And I don't want it. You… did you ever… I don't want to change, I don't want to be taller and stronger and be a _man_. I hate it."

He swipes fiercely at his eyes and glares at Victor, daring him to smirk at his tears. Victor doesn't look as though he finds this the least bit funny, though.

"I liked the way I looked when I was younger. When I was more like you. There is a look, a way of being, that I left behind when I grew. It's one of the reasons I enjoy watching you." He smiles, gently. "You skate beautifully."

"And it won't last. I'm going to change. It's already happening." His voice cracked again on the last words.

"Yes. Yuri, I… it was a little difficult as I got older, when I got taller and stronger and had to change the way I moved. But I liked it. I felt capable of even more, I didn't have to change my skating that much, and I got better. I'm fond of the way I was then, but I'm not sad I can't go back to it."

"Right, of course." Yuri looked away from him, his eyes on the floor.

" _Yuri_ ." Victor leaned over this time and gently held Yuri's chin, turning his face to meet Victor's again. "Yuri, that doesn't mean you have to feel the same way. Believe it or not, it's probably better if you don't want to be _exactly_ like me all the time."

Maybe it was just that little touch of Nikiforov arrogance, the suggestion that of course Yuri felt bad about not wanting to be the great Victor Nikiforov, that pushed Yuri into actually saying it. After fighting himself through this whole conversation, he didn't have a second thought when he snarled "Of course I don't want to be _you_ . I don't even want to be a _man_."

Victor blinks. Eventually he lets go of Yuri's chin and sinks back down in his chair. Yuri can see the gears turning in his head, and he just keeps blinking, and it would be funny if Yuri weren't ready to throw up now that he's thrown the words down for Victor to hear.

"So, are you saying you're a girl?"

"Don't be stupid," Yuri snorts. "I have a dick."

Victor looked up to the ceiling for a moment as though in prayer, and took a deep breath. Looks like it _is_ possible to get to him after all. "Yuri, having a dick isn't what makes you a man. If you feel like you should be a girl then you can just say you are."

"Well, I don't." He paused. "I… I thought about it, but I don't think that's what I am. I just don't want to be a man."

Victor nodded. "What do you want to be?"

This was too weird. Victor just asking, like Yuri can just… tell him. Just like that.

"I don't know," Yuri says, softly, for once. "I don't know what I want to be. What I am. I don't want to be a man or a woman, just something else."

"Okay," Victor says, nodding. "Okay. That's good. Thank you… thank you for telling me."

Yuri snorts. "Wow, yeah, because telling you I'm a freak is a real weight off my chest. I'll grow up and I'll hate it for the rest of my life but at least I've _talked about it._ "

Victor sighs. Not the lovesick sigh that Yuri's been hearing from him lately, or the quiet sighs he tried to hide before all this nonsense with Katsuki started, when Victor spent so much time faking. He sighs like there's a weight on his chest, something Yuri never would have expected from the light-hearted Victor Nikiforov.

"I wish I had known earlier." He reaches out to touch a strand of Yuri's hair. Yuri ducks away, hissing, and Victor blinks. "Sorry."

"But _why_ ? It's not like you can _do_ anything about it." Victor just looks bewildered now, so he plows on. "I mean it's great that I can tell you, but what the hell are you going to do about it? You can't… you can't trick me into some kind of save on this one. It doesn't matter how much I hate it, I'm going to grow up into a man and I'll just… I'll just have to deal with it anyway."

It's the truth. Saying it doesn't change it. It still makes him want to cry.

"Yuri," Victor says, pained. He reaches a hand across the table towards him but leaves it there and doesn't touch. "Yuri, I know why you would think that. I know what that must feel like. But that's _not true_."

"Bullshit. It happens to everyone."

"It doesn't have to. Fuck, I wish this wasn't happening mid season. I could take you out in America, or in Europe after Barcelona. You're not the only person in the world who's ever felt like this. There are trans people all kinds of places, and there are all kinds of options."

"What, like dressing up as a woman? I told you it's not like that."

Victor rubs his face. "That is so far from what I'm talking about. I just mean that there are lots of people who felt they were a gender different to what everyone says they're supposed to be, and if you're upset with the way your body is then you can change it."

Yuri stares at him. What the hell?

"I can't claim I know everything, but when I’ve travelled I’ve met people, made other friends… I don’t know, I’ve met other people who feel the same way as you. There are all kinds of things you can do. You can change your name, you can use different pronouns in English, especially. I hear they have really good treatments now for people your age, so you can stop your body developing any more than it has already.”

That sounded… great. And too easy. Yuri tapped his fingers on the table. “I don’t know how that would even work. How the hell do you get drugs like that?”

“Some doctors can prescribe it, I think?”

Yuri narrowed his eyes. “If I go to a doctor they’re going to throw me out.”

“Maybe here. But there are places elsewhere where people can help.”

It wasn’t that Yuri thought Victor was lying, just that all of this seemed like too much, too different from everything he’d known up until now. All he’d ever seen and heard told him that there were men and women, and you had to be one or the other. Trying to be anything different was comical at best and at worst could get you murdered in the streets.

“That just doesn’t sound real,” he said, at last.

Victor smiled at him, sadly. "There are places where it's different. Safer. Once it even seemed like Russia could grow safe one day, too, but...." He trails off with a shrug.

Yuri doesn’t know what to say. He has never known a time when one could be Russian, and queer, and have hope.

“I don’t know if I can… do all of that. People are going to laugh at me if I say I’m not a man, and ask them to call me something else. And I… oh god, I want to fix my body _so badly_ , but I still have to _skate_ , I can’t just get up and move to America, Victor.”

“Woah, woah, slow down, Yuri, it’s okay.” Victor stood up and walked around, crouched down next to Yuri’s seat. “It’s okay, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I want to.” Yuri buried his face in his hands. “I just don’t see how I can. How can I be who I want to be and have anyone still respect me? I know you say it’s possible but I just don’t understand.”

Victor gently touched his back, and when Yuri didn’t flinch away, started rubbing in slow circles. “I don’t know if it’s really easy anywhere. I think trans people have a pretty hard time even in America and Canada and other places, too. It’s just easier to get help for the physical stuff, and to find other people like you. I mean, that’s always how I always found it being gay at the Olympics and other international events. _Way_ easier to find other people who were just as willing to –“

“ _Gross_ , Victor!” Yuri raised his blotchy face up off his arms to glare. “I don’t want to hear about your Olympics hook-ups, that’s worse than having to listen to you crap on about Katsuki.”

Victor smiled. “Alright then. But will you believe me that you don’t have to hurt yourself to have a body you’re comfortable with? Eat, Yuri. Stay healthy this season. You can decide about other things later.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to eat because your food’s so gross,” Yuri said, but he took a forkful of pancakes anyway.

“That’s more like it.” Victor stood up and poured them both some more tea. “And you know, you don’t have to tell the whole world who you are. You can just tell me. Or Yuuri.”

Are you going to tell him?”

“Only if you want me to.” Victor shrugged. “But we mostly speak English together. If you did want to be called by a different pronoun, you could do that with Katsuki and me.”

“And you’re sure he won’t laugh at me?”

“I won’t let him,” Victor said, solemnly.

It was touching that Victor was so certain, and so willing to disagree with his boyfriend for Yuri’s sake. But something about his tone made Yuri snigger anyway.

“What’s so funny?” Victor frowned. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“I just thought you were on the other end of the leash in that relationship,” Yuri smirked.

Victor stared at him, stunned, a light blush creeping over his cheeks before he broke into a wide grin. “Yuri Plisetsky, did you just joke about my sex life instead of yelling at me? Well done!”

"I guess you earned it just this once. Don't get used to it."

Yuri ate the rest of his meal in silence. It was still a lot to think about. He wasn’t used to having this kind of hope – it was exciting, but it wasn’t comfortable. In a lot of ways it would be easier to go back to what he’d been doing and pretend this conversation never happened. But it was hard to close the door on it now, and at any rate, Victor was so annoying that he probably wouldn’t let him.

“Pronouns,” Yuri said, suddenly, when he’d finished his meal. “Like, in English. What do people use?”

“I don’t know exactly. ‘They’, I guess, or maybe something else. I’d have to do some research.”

“I can do my own research. Now that I know it’s a real thing, anyway.” Yuri took a deep breath. “Okay. You can tell Katsuki, and you guys can call me ‘they’ for now. Unless I find something else I like.”

“Wonderful!” Victor was absolutely beaming. “Now that we’ve talked and you’ve eaten some breakfast, how about we go and do some skating?”

“About _fucking_ time,” Yuri said, but they realised they were smiling too hard to really look very bitter.

* * *

Yuri won.

It was the kind of performance they'd always dreamed about. He felt small, lithe, powerful in their costumes, glittering like ice and fire. They took everything they had, every word from Lilia and Yakov and every sequence Victor had made from it, and crafted it into something only they could do. They soared through the poses and spins they'd taken from ballet classes and the more feminine figure skating moves, and blasted through the most difficult, explosive jumps ever devised, and wove it all together with a ferocity that was all Yuri. Nobody else could skate like they did. They reached the end of the program gasping for air, but it was the closest thing they'd ever felt to flying.

They’d like to say, _of course I won_ , because they’d like to say they knew all along. But they didn’t, really. They didn’t know that the final performance was going to turn out like that, that they’d finally manage to achieve _that_. They’d like to think that even if JJ was at his best, they still would have beat him this Grand Prix Final, because their performance was just that good.

So they won, and they won looking and skating exactly as they always wanted to, the way they saw themself. It was the most resounding victory they could possibly hope for.

And then they wondered, as they stepped off the podium, what now?

This was good enough to chase again and again, just like they always thought it would be. _Yuri_ hadn’t had any thoughts of quitting this season, unlike Victor or Katsuki. Yuri knew that this was exactly where they wanted to be, always.

But they thought of how much time they had to spend in disguise, too, even if they never felt more like themself than when they were wearing a skating leotard. They'd have to put on a suit for the banquet soon, and more and more, suits were starting to feel like a lie, too.

They looked around the stadium before they left to get changed, looked around at the crowds filing out and the other skaters milling around, and they knew that they wanted to be back here again. But Victor had given them a taste for what it was like to be seen for who they really were, and it was hard to let go.

No matter what Victor said, Yuri didn't see any way that they could have skating and be out as themself, with the body and presentation they really wanted. But Victor did say to start small.

* * *

Yuri didn't often wear the neck-to-ankle coats that their grandfather favoured, preferring a flashy jacket, but they wore one tonight for the walk from their hotel room to Victor's. Underneath it they were wearing the outfit they'd put together from all the shopping trips they could fit between Victor's visit and the final. It started with a button down shirt with a collar, like one he might have worn to school, along with a tie. Below that, though, he's wearing a skirt that stops at mid-thigh, some boots that came almost to his knees, and between them a pair of leopard-print tights. It wasn't perfect, but looking in the mirror with those tights on was the first time they'd felt as much like themself off the ice as they did on it.

Still, it was one thing to feel right in your weird outfit in the privacy of your own room, and another to be seen by someone else. Yuri has a hard time admitting to fear, which is why it so often comes out as snarling. There's nobody to see them pacing up and down in front of Victor and Katsuki's hotel room door, though, and nobody to snarl at, so it's just Yuri and their nervousness versus their own desire. A fourth lap of the corridor, and they finally managed to knock.

Victor answers looking ruffled, his tie askew, and this is gross. He _knew_ Yuri was coming over, so surely he could have held off on the making out for one evening. But Victor greeted them so warmly, and Katsuki seemed so genuinely happy to see them, that Yuri couldn't really act disgusted for too long.

"Hi Yuri!" Katsuki leapt up. "Sorry the room's so cramped."

"Less cramped than if you hadn't pushed the beds together," Yuri said, rolling their eyes. "I guess I should be grateful."

"You're welcome," said Victor, pleasantly. "Can I take your coat?"

Yuri clutched the front of their coat together instinctively. Victor doesn't flinch. He stands there, hand extended, just waiting.

Katsuki clears his throat loudly. "Yuri, could i get you something to drink?"

"Just some apple juice," Yuri says, and glares at him in case Katsuki tries to mock them for drinking juice like a child. As if it would ever occur to Katsuki to mock them.

But with Katuski's back turned, bent over the mini fridge, Yuri can finally take a deep breath, let it out, and take their coat off.

Victor whistles.

"Shut up." Yuri shoves the coat into his hands.

"I'm just appreciating your style, Yuri. It's very you!"

"Wow, Yuri!" Katsuki says, forgetting Yuri's drink for a moment when he turns around and takes it all in. "You look fantastic!"

"Well, _yeah_ ," Yuri says, automatically. "I _always_ look great."

"But this is your best thing yet." Katsuki hands them the juice and smirks at Victor. "See, I told you that you didn't have to worry about Yuri picking up outfits without you. They _always_ have the best fashion sense in the room."

Even Yuri didn't really believe that, in their heart of hearts, if only because they couldn't afford the kind of fine clothes that they saw Victor wearing every day. But that was a far second to the way they felt like melting just from hearing Katsuki call them 'they'.

"Thank you," Yuri said, at last, after taking a sip of their drink. "And of course you're right. I don't just have great fashion sense. This is the greatest outfit I have ever worn, and probably ever will. It's just a shame I can't show it off to the rest of the world by wearing it to the banquet."

Victor smiled, and raised his glass. "Yet."


End file.
